Letters to the Editor April 10, 2009

This letter is to generate both support and encouragement for Supervisor Martha McClure in her efforts to lower the speed limit along Pacific Avenue.

Though she does have support from other supervisors and the California Highway Patrol, there are resisters who believe lowering the speed limit to 25 mph would make Pacific Avenue a speed trap and that 35 mph is a safe speed for the road. It is a residential area, which by default should limit the speed to 25 mph, regardless of the schools in the immediate area. It will not be a speed trap and to call it so is ludicrous. Is A Street a speed trap? It is 25 mph.

We have as many, if not more children walking to one of the four public schools within a half-mile of the intersection of Pacific Avenue and El Dorado (Crescent Elk, Joe Hamilton, Bess Maxwell, and the high school) as any other area in the city or county. And that is not counting the college or the pre-schools at Four Square Church or the pre-school directly behind Bess Maxwell, nor the one right beside Joe Hamilton.

Please help Ms. McClure and her supporters get the speed limit lowered along Pacific and put a four-way stop sign at Pacific and El Dorado. Though this has not been mentioned before, they should put a crosswalk at Glenn Street because that is a short cut to some of the schools.

Notice I have not mentioned the elderly and disabled. I am not ignoring them and they have to be taken into consideration when considering lowering the speed limit and the installation of a four-way stop sign at El Dorado and Pacific.

There is an entire apartment complex right on Pacific Avenue that caters to them. There are several living there who are slower than a younger person crossing the road, and there are those who have electric powered wheelchairs, who are doing their best to be independent. This discussion also applies to them.

So I ask, please email or phone the Board of Supervisors, the City Council (Pacific Avenue is half-county and half-city), and the mayor and let them know you support Ms. McClure and the other board members who are trying to help her make Pacific Avenue a safer street.

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